Zhuang language (Vahcuengh)

[księżycowy]

'Useful' depends on how you look at things. But yeah, I completely understand what you're saying. I find those languages (the Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien families) to be quite fascinating. I especially find the orthographies quite interesting. But with out native speakers to interact with it can be hard to learn them and to keep them up.

I have a copy of White Hmong Lessons I'll probably take a whack at some day.
If I ever get some Chinese going I might look into Zhuang (as I'm assuming most resources are in Chinese), but we'll see.

[linguoboy]

though it seems it's not a very useful language despite having so many natives.

Well, one of the chief issues is that it's not really "one language". The traditional division of Tai into three branches splits the Zhuang dialects among two of them, Northern and Central. Pittayaporn's more granular revised classification splits them among even more. This shouldn't be surprising since dialectal diversity tends to decline the further you travel from the point of origin and Tai seems to have emerged as a language group in Southern China. But what it means is that "Standard" Zhuang (based on a Northern Tai dialect of Wuming County) is fairly distant from the spoken vernacular of the average Zhuang speaker--more so than is the case for the typical European. I wouldn't be surprised to find that most Zhuang find it easier to use Putonghua with someone from a distant county than Vahcuengh.

For instance, here's a comparison of first-person pronouns in three varieties of Zhuang:

S = Wuming (Standard)
M = Mashan
Q = Qinzhou

1S: gou24 (S); gou53 (M); (hong24)gu33 (Q)
1P-excl: raeu31 (S); dou53 (M); toi53gu33 (Q)
1P-incl: raeu31 (S); raeu22 (M); toi53laeu33, hong24laeu33 (Q)

Clearly you're looking at least as sizable a divergence as between, for instance, Romance nous(autres), nos(otros), nós, noi, etc. The two non-standard dialects given even have a clusivity distinction (i.e. "we [not including you"] vs. "we [including you]") that is lacking in the Standard.

[linguoboy]

Incidentally, I had a look to see what books the library had on Zhuang and found a Russian-language grammar from 1971. The name is transcribed into Russian as "Чжуан"--I don't think I've ever seen the digraph чж before!

[モモンガ]

Useful' depends on how you look at things. But yeah, I completely understand what you're saying. I find those languages (the Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien families) to be quite fascinating. I especially find the orthographies quite interesting. But with out native speakers to interact with it can be hard to learn them and to keep them up.

I have a copy of White Hmong Lessons I'll probably take a whack at some day.
If I ever get some Chinese going I might look into Zhuang (as I'm assuming most resources are in Chinese), but we'll see.

me too, I want to learn white Hmong.
There are slightly more resources.

Thai orthografies?
I have tried to learn Thai alphabet, but it's too hard.

Well, one of the chief issues is that it's not really "one language". The traditional division of Tai into three branches splits the Zhuang dialects among two of them, Northern and Central. Pittayaporn's more granular revised classification splits them among even more. This shouldn't be surprising since dialectal diversity tends to decline the further you travel from the point of origin and Tai seems to have emerged as a language group in Southern China. But what it means is that "Standard" Zhuang (based on a Northern Tai dialect of Wuming County) is fairly distant from the spoken vernacular of the average Zhuang speaker--more so than is the case for the typical European. I wouldn't be surprised to find that most Zhuang find it easier to use Putonghua with someone from a distant county than Vahcuengh.

For instance, here's a comparison of first-person pronouns in three varieties of Zhuang:

S = Wuming (Standard)
M = Mashan
Q = Qinzhou

1S: gou24 (S); gou53 (M); (hong24)gu33 (Q)
1P-excl: raeu31 (S); dou53 (M); toi53gu33 (Q)
1P-incl: raeu31 (S); raeu22 (M); toi53laeu33, hong24laeu33 (Q)

Clearly you're looking at least as sizable a divergence as between, for instance, Romance nous(autres), nos(otros), nós, noi, etc. The two non-standard dialects given even have a clusivity distinction (i.e. "we [not including you"] vs. "we [including you]") that is lacking in the Standard.

Yes, I have searched for something in Zhuang, and could found few songs, the comments were about which region's dialect is it.

By the way, I have found in Thai word for mouse is no, the same as Zhuang which is nou (or maybe no).


There is one book about Zhuang in Chinese, it's available on uz-translations.

There is also nung grammar in Vietnamese, Nung seems to be Vietnamese name for Zhuang, but I think it could be quite different, considering it could have Vietnamese loanwords.


Photo of how they look like.

There is also video course in Chinese on tudou!
one hour of listening!
The video quality is horrible though.


manaez - wolf

manaez gwn mou - wolf eats a pig

mou guh gij maz?
pig do what?

mou mbin .
pig flies.


These sentences are written by me, so I cannot say they are correct.
But maybe it will at least help in remembering vocabulary.

[księżycowy]

me too, I want to learn white Hmong.
There are slightly more resources.

Thai orthografies?
I have tried to learn Thai alphabet, but it's too hard.

Yes, there's even an excellent Hmong-English dictionary.

As far as orthographies, I was speaking of the latin script used the write Hmong and Zhuang.
I find the way their written quite odd and yet interesting. Mainly due to the 'simple' way it is, and the total lack of diacriticals. Which is quite different from comparable scripts like Chinese pinyin or Vietnamese.

[モモンガ]

me too, I want to learn white Hmong.
There are slightly more resources.

Thai orthografies?
I have tried to learn Thai alphabet, but it's too hard.

Yes, there's even an excellent Hmong-English dictionary.

As far as orthographies, I was speaking of the latin script used the write Hmong and Zhuang.
I find the way their written quite odd and yet interesting. Mainly due to the 'simple' way it is, and the total lack of diacriticals. Which is quite different from comparable scripts like Chinese pinyin or Vietnamese.

Well, yes if someone looks at Hmong, they may think it's not any language.




I have not been posting for a while, I am not learning.
But well, The book in Chinese I have is quite good.
Unfortunately I don't know how to say the name of my own country.
For me it's essential.

If you write to a pen pal, you say : Hi! i am from x country, I learn Zhuang.
Anyway I know Cunghgoz means China, and meigoz means USA.
The

[linguoboy]

Unfortunately I don't know how to say the name of my own country.

Anyway I know Cunghgoz means China, and meigoz means USA.

I would imagine they simply use the Standard Chinese name, Bōlán (波兰). After all, these other country names are obvious borrowings of Zhōngguó (中国) and Měiguó (美国).

[モモンガ]

Unfortunately I don't know how to say the name of my own country.

Anyway I know Cunghgoz means China, and meigoz means USA.

I would imagine they simply use the Standard Chinese name, Bōlán (波兰). After all, these other country names are obvious borrowings of Zhōngguó (中国) and Měiguó (美国).

Well, I think so too... but i have to learn first the Zhuang pronountiation of the 波兰










OK, well I forgot to mention the pronunciation, but... I think if you just look at omniglot page you can learn how to pronounce the letters.
And the Zhuang course teaches the tones, better than I would do it anyway.

It seems w is pronounced y in Polish, but i am not IPA specialist.



mwngz heuh guh coh gijmaz ?

What is your name?


heuh guh - to be called

coh - name
gijmaz - what



boux de dwg bouxlawz ?
Who is it?

boux - person
de - that
dwg - is
bouxlawz - who (notice the components : boux and lawz, boux means person lawz is some word to create question words: gizlawz - where, seizlawz - when)

Boux de dwg baengzyoux gou.
He is my friend

person that is friend I

baengzyoux - same as Chinese pengyou.

neix - this
de/haenx - that

gijneix dwg gijmaz?
What is it?

this thing is what thing?

gijhaengz dwg gijmaz?

what is that?

duz neix dwg duz maz?
What animal is it?
animal this is animal what?
Above sentences are from the textbook
I hope I am not breaking copyrights
The name of textbook is:

sawson sawcuengh
goekdaej gag bien
庄文基础自编教程

[linguoboy]

Unfortunately I don't know how to say the name of my own country.

Anyway I know Cunghgoz means China, and meigoz means USA.

I would imagine they simply use the Standard Chinese name, Bōlán (波兰). After all, these other country names are obvious borrowings of Zhōngguó (中国) and Měiguó (美国).

Well, I think so too... but i have to learn first the Zhuang pronountiation of the 波兰

Well, if you compare Zhōngguó with Cunghgoz, you'll see that Mandarin first tone [55] corresponds to Standard Zhuang sixth tone [33] and Mandarin second tone [35] to Zhuang second tone [31]. Thus, Bohlanz. (Googling "Bohlanz", in fact, turns up this page: http://www.kpr.eu/zgb/flora-europe/.)

[Karavinka]

If you compare Sinitic and Sinoxenic cognates (like 學生), Standard Mandarin is often the most deviant of all, compared to Southern Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese...

I never cared to learn any Zhuang, but here's a link in Japanese:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/NatureLand/3 ... u_ch00.htm

[モモンガ]

Unfortunately I don't know how to say the name of my own country.

Anyway I know Cunghgoz means China, and meigoz means USA.

I would imagine they simply use the Standard Chinese name, Bōlán (波兰). After all, these other country names are obvious borrowings of Zhōngguó (中国) and Měiguó (美国).

Well, I think so too... but i have to learn first the Zhuang pronountiation of the 波兰

Well, if you compare Zhōngguó with Cunghgoz, you'll see that Mandarin first tone [55] corresponds to Standard Zhuang sixth tone [33] and Mandarin second tone [35] to Zhuang second tone [31]. Thus, Bohlanz. (Googling "Bohlanz", in fact, turns up this page: http://www.kpr.eu/zgb/flora-europe/.)

Thanks i didn't know it would be so simple.

If you compare Sinitic and Sinoxenic cognates (like 學生), Standard Mandarin is often the most deviant of all, compared to Southern Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese...

I never cared to learn any Zhuang, but here's a link in Japanese:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/NatureLand/3 ... u_ch00.htm

yes, thank you.

but that's the site I have found at the beginning.







hm, I noticed interesting thing.

miz sounds just like Thai mii, meaning to have.
many words are really similar.
Unfortunately I don't know Thai, except few vocabulary.

[Luna_Lovegood]

I have found wonderful books on Zhuang!
If I will have time I will post something from there.
And if you know Chinese you can take the book.

[Yvelle]

Are there online Chinese resources for Zhuang?

[Yvelle]

Found a Zhuang video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wLxWgS-ga4

[Luna_Lovegood]

Thank you for ınterest ın Zhuang languageç
That's nice video, although I am just a beginner myself and cannot understand at all yt spoken language.

Well, there is one video in Chinese on Zhuang, on tudou website, 壮语900句 or something like that.
apart from that, there is one forum on Zhuang language (Chinese), but I forgot the link.

The textbook I have sent is only the first out of 4.

[E}{pugnator]

Have you guys checked out "An Introduction to the written Zhuang"?

[Luna_Lovegood]

thank it's an interesting book, I didn't download it before becuse I though it's only just a short introduction.